Boring, complex and important: a recipe for the web's dire future

Wire app wants to be the most beautiful communication tool

There's a new chat service in town from the people behind Skype. Wire is built with all the features we love across the various services we rely on in mind, and has aggregated them all into a single app with an eye-catching design.

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Wire's creators have thought about everything you might want from a communication service and built it all in. Audio calls?

Check. Media sharing? Check. The ability to ping people and pull in contacts from your phone and seamless cross-platform functionality?

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Check, check, check. It also offers a couple of features you might not have thought of, such as Soundcloud and YouTube integration, which should make it easier to share video and audio inline with friends.

Wired will have to overcome Skype's substantial headstart if it is to find its own niche. Building up a user base from nothing is tough when people have become reliant already on alternative services. To sway the masses in your favour is no easy feat.

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Apple, Skype, Nokia and Microsoft, with former Skype executive Jonathan Christensen at the helm and Skype co-founder Janus Friis also on board.

There has been a significant focus on elegant design and you only need to take a look at the screenshots to see that Wire has been crafted just as much to please aesthetically as to provide an intuitive user experience. "It is time to create the best possible communication tools, as beautiful as they are useful. Wire is just that," Friis said.

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Friis goes on to describe Wire as a "modern communication system", rather than referring to it as a messaging app. What's quite clear is that the team hopes to present Wire as a lifestyle tool rather than a singular, standalone mobile product. The design emphasis on seamlessly shifting between modes of conversation, the focus on HD call quality and conversation layout all suggest a more rounded product.

Because there is no true multifunctional, cross-platform messaging app that has managed to capture people's imaginations, there is still space in the market for a product like Wire. It could have been Google Hangouts, or even Skype itself, but due to timing, pitch and execution, neither has managed to establish themselves firmly in that space.

Wire is currently available across iOS, Android and OS X and has an adaptive design that works across mobile, tablet and desktop.